THE LAW OF A LAST REQUEST
C Bury Me with My Favorite Toy, Part 1 By William A. Drennan
William A. Drennan is a professor at Southern Illinois University Law School and a former editor for the Books & Media Committee of the Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section of the ABA.
Published in Probate & Property, Volume 37, No 6 © 2023 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
44
November/December 2023
Getty Images
an you take it with you? At least into your casket? Casket manufacturers now mass-produce caskets with “memory drawers” and “secret compartments” that can hold prized possessions and mementos. See Key Features on Which to Base Your Choice of a Casket, ToCanvas (Jan. 27, 2020), https://www.tocanvas.net/key. How can estate planners design and draft to help clients who want to take a cherished item along? This first article discusses potential client motivations, actual burial fact patterns, and techniques for an estate planner to address the one reported judicial opinion on this issue, which concluded the direction was unenforceable because it encouraged grave robbing. The second article, in a future issue, will focus on why this is a particularly challenging practical and legal area and describe potential design and drafting options for addressing the major legal issue beyond grave robbing—whether these directions are unenforceable under the public policy doctrine because of economic waste.
